Study for Holograms

Derived from one of a series of photographs, this screenprint depicts the lower half of the artist's face with exaggerated expressions. The focus is the subject's mouth and its transformation by squeezing, stretching, and pulling. The performative imagery convey the body as a plastic form that can be manipulated. Fundamentally arbitrary, the facial gestures are expected to evoke an emotional response from the viewer. After photographing the faces, Nauman filmed them. He eventually decided to translate them into holograms, since he felt that the medium more suitably captured their sculptural form and meaning.